Embodiments herein generally relate to methods and systems of enhancing the user's experience when working with documents and images and, more specifically, provides pictures, graphics, images, etc., related to words, phrases, sentences, etc., when a pointing device is positioned over the word or phrase to help the user to understand and remember the words, phrases, sentences, etc., being read, and/or increase the enjoyment of the user.
Reading a document is often enhanced by relevant information such as pictures and maps that illustrate an unfamiliar place or culture. Therefore, embodiments herein provide systems and methods that, depending upon the location of a graphic user interface pointer, display images from various collections adjacent to or over words in documents (or on web pages). The images can link to collections of images that further illustrate the document. If the user hovers the pointer over words, they are provided pictures associated with such words, and if the user hovers the pointer over pictures, the user is provided article identifiers related to such pictures. Further, the embodiments herein use the references in the documents to augment the metadata associated with the images to further enhance the description of the image. The accumulation of such metadata relationships between textual documents and images further enables additional associations in the future, with a resulting behavior much like learning.
More specifically, presented below is a method of enhancing the user's experience when working with documents and images. In one embodiment, the method monitors at least one input of a graphic user interface to identify the location of the graphical pointer within the display of the graphic user interface. When the graphical pointer is positioned over (e.g., paused over, hovered over, clicked on, etc.) at least one word displayed on the display, the method matches the word to at least one image within an image database. The images within the image database can comprise textual metadata to permit the matching of the word to the matched image.
Similarly, when the graphical pointer is positioned over at least one image displayed on the display, the method matches the displayed image to at least one textual article within an article database. The displayed image can also comprise textual metadata to permit the matching of the displayed image to the textual article.
After performing either (or both) of the above matching processes, the method can then provide output to the user by displaying (and potentially later printing) the matched image on a location of the display proximate to the word, or displaying at least one article identifier (title, summary, etc.) of the matched textual article on a location of the display proximate to the displayed image.
Thus, the embodiments herein provide pictures, graphics, images, video, audio, etc., related to words, phrases, sentences, etc., when a pointing device is positioned over the word or phrase to help the user to understand and remember the words, phrases, sentences, etc. being read, and/or increase the enjoyment of the user. Similarly, the embodiments herein provide titles, summaries, or other identifiers of articles related to pictures, graphics, images, etc. when a pointing device is positioned over the pictures, graphics, images, etc. to help the user to understand and remember the pictures, graphics, images, etc, and/or increase the enjoyment of the user. Thus, if the user hovers the pointer over words they are provided pictures associated with such words, and if the user hovers the pointer over pictures, the user is provided article identifiers related to such pictures.
The matched image and the article identifier each comprise, or are associated with, a hyperlink within the display. The method updates the textual metadata of the matched image and the article metadata upon the user's selection of the hyperlink through the graphic user interface. More specifically, the textual metadata of the matched image and the article metadata are updated according to keywords of the displayed textual article that the pointer is hovered over and/or the keywords of the textual metadata of the image that is hovered over.
The method can also rank the images within the image database and rank the textual articles within the article database based upon the user's selection of the hyperlink through the graphic user interface. With this, the process of matching the word to the matched image can give preferences to higher ranked images. Similarly, the process of matching the displayed image to the textual article can give preferences to higher ranked textual articles based on the ranking of the textual articles within the article database.
The matching of the word and the matching of the displayed image can be further based on items such as categorical relationships between the word and the textual metadata; categorical relationships between the textual article and the textual metadata of the displayed image; and user preferences.
Embodiments herein also include a system that comprises at least one computer storage medium (readable by a computer) storing the database of images. A processor can be operatively connected to the computer storage medium. The processor reads data and executes instructions stored on the computer storage medium. The graphic user interface can also be operatively connected to the processor. The graphic user interface has at least one input and at least one display.
The processor monitors the input of the graphic user interface to identify the location of the graphical pointer within the display of the graphic user interface. As described above, when the graphical pointer is positioned over at least one word displayed on the display, the processor matches the word to at least one image within the database of images. Similarly, when the graphical pointer is positioned over at least one image displayed on the display, the processor matches the displayed image to at least one textual article within an article database. The display outputs (displays) the matched image (or textual article)on a location of the display proximate to the word.
The processor updates the textual metadata of the matched image and the article metadata upon the user's selection of the hyperlink through the graphic user interface. Again, the textual metadata and the article metadata are updated according to keywords of the displayed textual article that the pointer is hovered over and/or the keywords of the textual metadata of the image that is hovered over.
The processor can also rank the images within the image database and rank the textual articles within the article database based upon the user's selection of the hyperlink through the graphic user interface. With this, the processor can give preferences to higher ranked images or higher ranked textual articles based on the rankings within the databases.
Also, the processor can maintain the textual metadata of the images within a relationship table of the image database instead of maintaining the textual metadata within image files of the image database. Similarly, the embodiments herein can maintain the article metadata of the textual article files within a relationship table of the article database instead of maintaining the article metadata within textual article files of the article database.
These and other features are described in, or are apparent from, the following detailed description.